Who really decoded Down’s syndrome?

The Frenchman credited with finding the genetic cause of Down’s is in line for sainthood. Now his colleague says it was her who made the crucial breakthrough

IN A nondescript hotel room on the outskirts of Bordeaux, an elderly lady puts on a smart white skirt and top and applies lipstick. Today is a special day for 88-year-old Marthe Gautier. She has been invited to speak at a prestigious scientific conference, after which she will receive a medal acknowledging her part in one of the most important medical discoveries of the 20th century.

It is to be her moment of vindication, but it never arrives.

Earlier that day, two legal representatives turned up at the French Federation of Human Genetics conference bearing a court order allowing them to record her talk. They looked at Gautier’s slides and pointed out sections that they said could be defamatory.

Fearful of legal action, the organisers decide to ask Gautier to stay away. Two of them are dispatched to the hotel where they unceremoniously hand over her medal, still in its red box. Her talk is cancelled.

Disputes over scientific credit are common, but few culminate in such drama. The legal representatives were acting on behalf of the relatives and supporters of the late Jérôme Lejeune, a geneticist, paediatrician, anti-abortion campaigner, friend of Pope John Paul II and current candidate for sainthood.

Lejeune is not well known in the English-speaking world, but in France he is a scientific legend. In 1959, he was the first author on a brief research paper revealing …

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